Labour Lefts Rehearsed Debate With Tories!

Right Wing Tories Want Military Dictatorship

Coming after three years of uninterrupted defeats,
the events in Libya and Egypt have aroused a profound disquiet
within the British people. The debate on this latest crisis is a
warning and a portent to the working class.

The workers are becoming critical and disgusted at the continued
incompetence of their rulers in the military and industrial
spheres. After three years of war industry is still not producing
the type of equipment to match that of the Germans, and the officer
caste reveals itself to be utterly stupid and incompetent.

Nothing but anarchy and chaos faces the workers everywhere. The
feeling in the workshops and in the army is one of exasperation and
frustration.

It is this which has compelled the ruling class to stage a
debate, as a lightning conductor to the anger of the masses.

One section of the ruling class is already beginning to think of
desperate measures to be used against the working class, whose eyes
are being opened to the necessity for a change. This was
demonstrated by the censure motion of Sir John Wardlaw Milne and
the extreme right wing of the Tory Party. This right wing Tory
utilised the obvious inefficiency of the generals to make a
“brilliant” suggestion of changes in the military
leadership. He proposed that the situation could be retrieved by
appointing as Commander in Chief…the Duke of Gloucester! Even in
the House of Commons this was greeted with loud groans. No matter
the qualities of the noble Duke, it is obvious that as a military
leader he would be a joke. But the sinister implication of this
proposal is all too clear. The last reserve of the ruling class,
the Royal family, was to be brought forward as a cover for a
military dictatorship to keep the masses down by force.

Sir Roger Keyes reflected this tendency when he contemptuously
attacked the Labour leaders—Bevin, Morrison and Alexander—
suggesting that their services in the government were no longer
required. He clearly indicated that they could not hold the masses
in check. They could not prevent strikes or other manifestations of
unrest, and were therefore no longer of any use to the ruling
class. They see too that the Churchill myth is ending.

Today, of course, their programme is not taken seriously by the
decisive section of ruling class. Such a programme is not needed as
yet. But the fact that, at the first signs of disgust on the part
of the workers, already such a tendency has been manifested within
their ranks, is an indication of what will happen among the basic
section when a real movement begins among the masses.

In as guarded and veiled a way as possible, Churchill, in
self-defence, indicated what the right wing Tories were after:

“The mover of the vote of censure
has proposed that I be stripped of my responsibilities for defence
in order that some military figure or unnamed personage should
assume the general conduct of the war, that he should have under
him a royal duke as commander in chief of the army…

“This is a system very different from the
parliamentary system under which we have lived. It might easily
amount to, or be converted into, a dictatorship.”

This section of the ruling class could quite easily
don the robes of Petain.

And Churchill’s protestations that he would not
participate in such a regime are worth no more and no less than the
protestations of Renaud and Daladier in France. They too held their
hands to their black hearts and proclaimed undying devotion to
“democracy”. But in the hour of crisis they handed over
to the Pétains and Lavals who sold out to Hitler.

The writing is on the wall. If the workers do not realise the
danger, they could find themselves under a British
“Vichy”. There are already candidates for this post!
For the time being they lurk and plot in the background, but in
times of crisis they will thrust themselves forward. Already they
are cautiously airing their programme in parliament. What are they
saying and preparing behind the scenes? And what alternative has
Churchill to offer? The not very consoling prospect of a long and
bloody war.

“I have never shared the view,” he
assured us in his reply, “that this would be a short war or
that it would end in 1942. It is far more likely to be a long war.
There is no reason to suppose that it will stop when the final
result has become obvious.”

Churchill offers a programme of interminable
slaughter and misery. He admits that even when there will be no
hope of victory for Hitler, that the German people will continue a
desperate resistance to the end. The reason for this is not far to
seek. They have good reason to fear a Churchill victory.

In face of this exposure, the Labour leaders maintained their
allegiance with Churchill and his class, which tomorrow will turn
on the workers as did Pétain. They insisted on giving full support
to a system of utter corruption which can only lead the workers to
ruin and disaster.

How Labour “lefts” fool the workers

The profound disquiet among the working class has
had its effect not only in alarming the ruling-class right-wing of
the Tory party to prepare measures against it, but has had its
repercussions in the Labour Party as well. One section of the
Labour “left” led by Shinwell abstained from
voting—this was the most cowardly position of all. Other
“left” labour leaders found themselves following in the
wake of the leftward moving masses in order to retain some support.
It was only yesterday that Aneurin Bevan and the other
“left” leaders were fawning on Churchill and pleading
with this arch representative of the capitalist class to introduce
socialism in the interests of the war. But no more realistic and
not one whit better than this, is their present policy.

Debate was staged

Aneurin Bevan launched a slashing attack on
Churchill and the ruling class. But all this fiery speechifying, as
well as the other Labour “lefts”, was so much hot air!
The whole thing was staged from beginning to end for the purpose of
fooling the workers. Alfred Edwards, Labour M.P. for Middlesbrough
East has blown the gaff!

Speeches by Labour M.P.s attacking Cabinet Ministers were
rehearsed and agreed to beforehand by the Ministers themselves! Mr.
Alfred Edwards, described it as: “This shadow boxing which
will bring us and Parliament into contempt.” Thus reported
the News Chronicle on July 7th.

What could more clearly demonstrate the shameful hypocrisy and
cynicism of the Bevans and Shinwells. Their sham statements are
meant to act as a safety valve for the accumulated anger and
discontent of the working class. In this sense, they play an even
more despicable and contemptible role than the Labour leaders
themselves. Their phrases are not meant as a means of organising
and giving a fighting lead to the working class. But they are given
for the purpose of preventing the exasperation getting an organised
outlet.

They did not even differentiate themselves from the Tory right
wing gang of reactionaries, going to the length of signing the
motion of censure together with them. They offered no alternative
whatsoever. Although Bevan and the left were compelled to castigate
the reactionary officer caste and the inefficiency in production,
they did not demand a break with these evils. They did not offer
the only practicable alternative in the interests of the working
class—an end to the disastrous coalition. The reason for this
is that they have no desire to break from their capitalist masters,
and in this they are no different to the rest of the Labour
leaders.

End the truce!

All these staged debates cannot hold the working
class in check for long.

The British workers are moving left and what they are seeking is
a fighting lead on the road to independence from their
exploiters—the road of class struggle.

Workers! Exert pressure on the Labour leaders to break the
coalition and take power on the programme of the Socialist
Appeal. This fighting policy of socialism is the only answer to
all problems confronting the workers—the Defence of the
Soviet Union—the defeat of Fascism abroad as well as at
home—to a future of a world of peace, run by the workers for
the workers.

By fighting side by side with the workers on this programme, we
can convince them by their own experience that the Labour leaders
do not represent their interests and that only the Fourth
International can lead to the victory of the working class against
the sinister forces which the ruling class is preparing to crush
the workers of this and other lands.